The present invention relates to a technique for supporting a registration procedure of information necessary to make a key.
Many kinds of keys are used in the modern society such as for houses, rooms, safes, cases, cars, machines, and the like whether we like it or not. Therefore, when a key is lost, inconvenience can occur inevitably such that we cannot enter a room, open a safe, get in a car, and operate a machine.
In this respect, as the conventional countermeasure, arrival of a person who has a duplicate key is waited for or a service company about a key is called to have the key unlocked or destroyed depending on the situation.
However, in case of waiting for a person having a duplicate key, generally it takes unexpected time and it maybe often imprecision. While, in case of calling a service company, it costs a great deal. Furthermore, in case of having a key destroyed, there is a problem of fixing a new key.
To avoid the above problems, it would be convenient to previously register the information necessary to make a key somewhere in case of losing a key and, if necessary, and ask for manufacture of the duplicate key based on the information. However, a key has a complicated shape and it is very difficult for general public to identify a key. Therefore, it is hard to convey properly the information necessary to make a key to a key manufacturer. Further, it would be troublesome and inconvenient to carry a key and visit a key manufacturer in order to register the information of the key. Therefore, it is expected to develop a system capable of registering the information necessary to make a key easily by using a personal computer at home and the like.
An object of the present invention is to provide a technique for supporting the information registration procedure necessary to make a key, in order to perform the same at ease.
In order to solve the above problem, a system for supporting the registration procedure of the information necessary to make a key, according to the present invention, is characterized by comprising: means for storing image data for key information input including an image indicating a shape of a key plate, an area display image indicating an area where a key groove concerned about the shape needs to be formed, and a key groove shape display image indicating a plurality of key groove shapes, in relation to key plate specification information for specifying the shape of the key plate; means for accepting an input of the key plate specification information for specifying a key plate; means for retrieving the image data for key information input about a key plate specified by the accepted the key plate specification information; means for outputing the image data for key information input found by the above retrieval; and means for accepting an input of information including a specified key groove shape indicated by the key groove shape display image and a specified area indicated by the area display image, as for the supplied image data for key information input.